Processor grunt — CPU cores and clock speed

The dual-core 3.6GHz model can be a good choice: it will run some tasks faster than the quad-core models. But as soon as those two CPU cores are "pegged," that's it.

Think of the 3.6Ghz dual-core model as being roughly equivalent to a 3-core Intel Core i5 2.8GHz model, once clock speed is taken into account, but performing better on tasks that are not efficient, like saving or opening files in Photoshop. Thus, the choice is not cut and dried